US Embassy against Georgia’s sovereignty, backing a coup – former ruling party MPs

Four former MPs of the ruling Georgian Dream party, Sozar Subari, Dimitri Khundadze, Guram Macharashvili and Mikheil Kavelashvili, who quit the party in June in a bid “to tell the public the truth”, on Friday accused the US Embassy to Georgia and Ambassador Kelly Degnan of “fighting against Georgia’s sovereignty” and backing the “radical forces who wish a coup”. 

“The Embassy cannot adapt to the sovereign Government of Georgia, which refuses to push Georgia to Russia’s war in Ukraine. We have no doubt that the Embassy will do everything to overthrow such a Government and will even take much more difficult steps than the election forgery”, the MPs said, slamming the Embassy for backing the domestic election watchdog – the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy – which was excluded from an ongoing electoral reform by the ruling party for being “politically biased”, stating that the NGO’s incorrect parallel-vote-count data in 2020 elections “gave the reason” to the opposition to take to the street. Speaking about the Embassy’s “anti-Government” goals, the MPs said that “we are sure that the power of the people equipped with truth will firmly protect the country’s sovereignty and will not give anyone the opportunity to bring chaos to the country and drag it into war”. 

The MPs also said that the Embassy “was speaking with the messages” of the United National Movement “radical opposition”, and that it [the Embassy] was responsible for current political polarization in Georgia. 

In her recent statements Degnan expressed “full confidence in ISFED”, describing the NGO as a “ highly respected and experienced election monitoring organization”. 

The Ambassador also said that all international and domestic observing organizations in the 2020 parliamentary elections “pointed to serious violations: voter intimidation, vote buying, carousel voting, abuse of administrative resources, and other violations that occurred in the weeks leading up to the election as well as on election day”. 

“None of the reports assessed these elections as being fair. ISFED was not responsible for those violations”, said the Ambassador, noting that the NGO announced its mistake in the parallel-vote count once it was confirmed. 

In her previous comments on polarization, the Ambassador suggested that “things like Gavrilov’s night, things like broken political promises and anti-democratic actions. That is where this deep polarization came from, not from Western partners, who again, have only been trying to help Georgia bridge this deep polarization so that the Parliament and other institutions can focus on what’s really important to Georgians”.